Quote

I suspect that marriage is like parenthood: every last one of us is an amateur at it.

Anne Tyler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anne Tyler
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: October 25
Librarian
Novelist
Short Story Writer
Writer
Minneapolis
Minnesota
Suspects
Marriage
Lasts
Last
Every
Like
Amateur
Parenthood
Suspect

More quotes by Anne Tyler

Image
My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.
Anne Tyler
Image
If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.
Anne Tyler
Image
You think we're a family,' Cody said, turning back. 'You think we're some jolly, situation-comedy family when we're in particles, torn apart, torn all over the place, and our mother was a witch.
Anne Tyler
Image
People always talked about a mother's uncanny ability to read her children, but that was nothing compared to how children could read their mothers.
Anne Tyler
Image
I've always thought sleep was a wonderful invention. Not that being awake isn't nice too, of course. But when I get up in the morning, I think, boy, only fourteen more hours and I can be back to sleep again ... And I never dream, because it distracts my mind from pure sleeping.
Anne Tyler
Image
I remember leaving the hospital - thinking, 'Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don't know beans about babies! I don't have a license to do this.' We're just amateurs.
Anne Tyler
Image
I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin
Anne Tyler
Image
I didn't really choose to write I more or less fell into it.
Anne Tyler
Image
I wonder how many times we dream that kind of dream-something strange and illogical-and fail to realize God is trying to tell us something.
Anne Tyler
Image
There is no true life. Your true life is the one you end up with, whatever it may be. You just do the best you can with what you've got.
Anne Tyler
Image
For my own family, I would always choose the makeshift, surrogate family formed by various characters unrelated by blood.
Anne Tyler
Image
He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.
Anne Tyler
Image
I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows
Anne Tyler
Image
One sad thing about this world is that the acts that take the most out of you are usually the ones that people will never know about. (from 'Celestial Navigation')
Anne Tyler
Image
People imagine that missing a loved one works kind of like missing cigarettes,' he said. 'The first day is really hard but the next day is less hard and so forth, easier and easier the longer you go on. But instead it's like missing water. Every day, you notice the person's absence more.
Anne Tyler
Image
Liam really enjoyed a good movie. He found it restful to watch people's conversations without being expected to join in. But he always felt sort of lonesome if he didn't have someone next to him to nudge in the ribs at the good parts.
Anne Tyler
Image
Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.
Anne Tyler
Image
I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage.
Anne Tyler
Image
When I read, I'm purely a reader
Anne Tyler
Image
The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.
Anne Tyler